drawn more intently to His person,--His face, His
wounds. The scars where the thorns tore His great, patient face; the
grief-whitened hair, draped above those deep, tender, unspeakable eyes;
that strangely rough place in the palm so lovingly outstretched; the
spear-scar, the nail-marks in those feet coming over to you,--these grip
you. Their meaning begins to come. There's cleansing; yes, blessed fact!
there's _cleansing_ from this horrid impurity whose stain you are so
conscious of. Yet, what it cost Him! What my impurity forced upon Him!
Yes, cleansed; blessed Jesus! What a relief to be cleansed! Yet I must
_stay_ under the stream; only so can the sense of relief be continual.
And I must stay down on my face at His feet. It is the only place for such
as I discover myself to be. Yet what grace to let me stay at His feet!

Have you _seen Christ_? This is what begins to come when you have--His
purity, your contrasted lack; His glorious self, your own nothingness in
yourself; His suffering--the price of your cleansing. This is only a
beginning, yet a beginning that comes to be the continuous thing.

Closer Acquaintance.

After a little, as you are sitting still in His presence, and have become
a bit quieter after that flush of first emotions at seeing Him, you begin
to be caught all anew with how _lovable_ He is. This takes great hold of
you. I overheard a once-drunken, now thoroughly changed man, up in
Scotland, as he was fairly pouring out his heart in prayer in his sweet,
broad Scotch,--"Once Thou didst have no form or comeliness to me, but
now"--and it seemed as if all the pent-up feelings within rushed at once
to flood-tide--"_now_ Thou art the chiefest among ten thousand, and the
One altogether lovely." And the high-water mark of the flood was touched
on "chiefest" and "altogether."

That first look made you think mostly of your-self--an inner loathing. Now
you think of _Him_. He is so lovable, so true and tender, and patient and
pure; again your language gives out, and you feel better content just to
look without trying to use words. They're such poor things when it comes
to telling about Him. He is so much more than anything that can be said
about Him. His will is so wise and thoughtful and far-reaching and loving.
Strange how stupid you have been in insisting so strenuously and blindly
on having your own way. His plan, His thought about everything concerning
you, is _so_ superb. And He asks me to be His